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Winnipeg Free Press

Team of front-line workers to tackle hospital wait times

The Manitoba government has released a new strategy aimed at lowering hospital emergency room wait times, with an initial goal of cutting key metrics by an hour. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said it's hoped the two metrics — for patients waiting to be seen in an ER and for patients who leave without being seen — begin to improve in six months to a year. 'We're looking at reducing those wait times by approximately an hour,' Asagwara said at a news conference at Health Sciences Centre Thursday. 'Ultimately, our goal is to meaningfully lower those wait times and sustain that over time. If metrics improve in four months, in eight months, and we see a reduction of two hours, great, but we need to sustain that.' MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES The median 'waiting to be seen time' (from registration upon arrival to seeing a doctor or nurse practitioner) reached a high of four hours in December 2023 at Winnipeg's four emergency rooms and three urgent care centres, the government said. The median was 3.92 in March, as per the latest data from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. The 'left without being seen rate' measures patients who leave ERs before an assessment or treatment by a doctor or nurse practitioner. It is an indicator of ER performance, particularly excessively long wait times. At Winnipeg hospitals, between 14.2 and 17.3 per cent of patients left without being seen in the 12 months up to March, as per government data. Hiring more front-line staff is a key part of the plan to reduce wait times, Asagwara said. The NDP government said it has hired more than 1,600 net new health-care staff and added 240 fully staffed beds since being elected in October 2023. The strategy involves a new team, made up of doctors, nurses, other front-line staff and process engineers, that is tasked with reducing wait times. Asagwara vowed the team's work and structure will be different from ER wait time task forces or committees set up by past governments. Costs are included in the 2025-26 budget, they said. The group, already at work for a few months, is proposing changes system-wide, not just in ERs, to help improve the quality of care to Manitobans. Many involve expanding or using existing resources more efficiently. Access block is one of the main barriers to reducing wait times, Asagwara said. It happens when admitted ER patients cannot be transferred because staffed beds elsewhere in the health system are not available. The team is exploring ways to reduce access block at triage, which team co-chair Dr. Kendiss Olafson said would involve staff seeing to patients in the waiting room when an ER is overwhelmed. A new Manitoba 811 service, incorporating Health Links and virtual services, is designed to help nurses triage and redirect low-acuity patients away from ERs. Another initiative is the return of a virtual ward and an expansion of home-based care teams to allow certain patients to receive care in their home. There are plans to do more endoscopy procedures, and expand a program that provides intravenous therapy in patients' homes rather than at a hospital. Olafson said the team aims to expand services, add capacity and break down barriers, as well as not create more work for staff. Heidi Adamko, a process engineer and team member, recounted the challenges and long waits her mother faced while receiving care for cancer. Her mother, in the nine days before she died, spent two nights and one day in waiting rooms, and three days in emergency beds waiting for a bed elsewhere, before being moved to palliative care, Adamko said. PHIL HOSSACK / FREE PRESS FILES 'Her story isn't unique. Unfortunately, these waits have become the normal experience for Manitobans accessing acute care,' she said. Adamko said she's grateful to get an opportunity to improve care for others. 'At some point, each of us will find ourselves waiting for care. My hope is that no one waits as long as my mom did in the final week of their life,' she said. Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said the team is made up of people who want to make a difference. She hopes the government gives them the support they need, and properly funds the initiatives they propose. 'I know from experience that many, many times committees bring forward strategies and make recommendations that are never carried out,' Jackson said. 'To me, it's a colossal waste of time for these individuals if that's going to happen.' ER wait times in Manitoba, she said, have climbed for the fourth year in a row. Asagwara blamed ER current wait times on cuts and facility closures by the former Tory government. Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook said the 'blame game' isn't going to solve the problem. Wednesdays A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future. 'Accountability and action are going to solve the problem,' she said. Cook said she has a 'great deal' of respect for the team's members. A 12-page strategy document released Thursday was 'very thin,' she said. 'The NDP announced an ER wait time strategy in their throne speech back in the fall. It's been months since then,' Cook said. 'I'm, frankly, very surprised that this is all they've come up with in the time in between. I don't see this as an actionable strategy. I see it more as a political document.' She said the document should include targets, timelines and an analysis of the additional capacity that is needed throughout the system to lower wait times. Chris KitchingReporter Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris. 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